Remember that running sight gag in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
that had various fruits, vegetables, and whatnot strategically placed in front of
Myers' and Hurley's naughty bits? The sequel opens with a continuation of that image
and, eventually, moves to an even more inspired verbal offshoot. It's guffaw-inducing
comedy at its finest, and like much of this new outing, it's even better than the
original, ahem, package. Hurley makes only a brief cameo here, replaced by a slinky
Graham as CIA operative and new bedmate, Felicity Shagwell, to Myers' swinging shutterbug
secret agent, but fans of the original will hardly miss her. Granted, Graham lacks
the comic spontaneity that her predecessor evinced, but she's still lovely to look
at, and besides, Myers and co-writer Michael McCullers have packed so many ribald
yuks into the mix that it's hard to even catch your breath, much less nitpick. But
that's my job, isn't it? This time out, Powers must travel back in time to the fabled
swinging Sixties of Carnaby Street to retrieve his "mojo" (read: his libido), which
has been stolen by nefarious evildoer Dr. Evil (Myers again) and his new henchmen
Fat Bastard (still Myers!) and Mini-Me, a 1/8th-scale clone version of the bad doctor.
Roach has gone on record as saying that upward of 40% of the new film's dialogue
was ad-libbed on the spot, and like the good old days of a pre-earnest Robin Williams,
it shows through gleefully. Myers' preoccupation with scatological humor gets to
be a bit too much sometimes (a scene in which Fat Bastard's stool sample is mistaken
for the proverbial cup of mud is enough to put anyone off their java for a good long
while), but the dozens of brazen throwaway gags scattered throughout more than make
up for any lapses into outright bad taste. Headquartered in Seattle in a Space Needle-esque
Starbucks Tower (!), Dr. Evil divides his time between scheming to do away with our
hero and struggling to maintain his evil grip on decidedly non-evil son Scott Evil
(who turns up on a Jerry Springer Show entitled "My Dad Is Evil and Wants to Dominate
the World") while doling out way too much misplaced affection to Mini-Me (Troyer)
in a deliciously wicked homage to Brando's evil clone in The Island of Dr. Moreau.
Does Austin get his mojo back, save the day, and shag the Shagwell? Well, duh. But
it's all fab, baby, a kicky, wiggy sequel that scores on all levels, from the sexy
to the sublime. Cameos by Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello, Woody Harrelson, SNL
alum Will Ferrell, Willie Nelson, Tim Robbins, and Rebecca Romijn Stamos, among others,
keep you on your toes, while Myers delivers one of the best spy send-ups since James
Coburn in In Like Flint (yet another cameo, by the way). Now, if someone would teach
Heather Graham how to stop acting sexy and just be sexy, we'd have a near-perfect
comedy on our hands.